Tag: Identity

So I went to the University of Penn tonight to see a lecture from the famous Paula Scher. She is one of the Pentagram folks that never disappoints. (Michael Bierut is another one. If you get the chance, I wouldn’t miss either of these folks speak.) Usually I find lectures like these inspiring and exciting, but they can also be more than a little humbling. I’m a professional designer, coming in at 30-blah-blah years of age, busily working away at my craft. And sometimes it’s more than a little humbling to hear these smart, engaged people, talking about the sorts of projects/clients they are involved in/with. Tonight’s lecture lived up to all the good expectations, and for lack of a better word, the bad one’s too. But there was one slide in particular that hit me pretty hard. It was a sort of joke slide.

So here is my re-creation of her slide from my pot-hole filled memory:

I’m really not sure about the title and labels, or even if she had any labels on the slide, but you can probably get the idea. She was driving at the concept that as a designer gets older, they have less new and exciting ideas. (I don’t remember her exact phrasing, but the “Good Ideas” concept is what I remember/interpret from how she was talking about the diagram) So I looked at that pretty simplistic, made-up infographic, and thought about my ever approaching 40th trip around our sun, and that diagram struck me as pretty darned depressing. I thought, “This must have been a diagram she made in her 20’s or early 30’s… and I wonder if she still feels this way?”

So I worked up a couple additions to here diagram. The first, well it speaks to something that can be variable depending on a designer’s engagement, but can be imagined as a pretty straight and inevitable line… Experience:

And while that’s a little comforting to think about the inevitable collection of “experience”… that can be defined in such a way that any lump-on-a-log designer could ride that line up and up. So that’s not gonna quite cut it for me. I need more.

I’m going to settle on something a little less concrete, but infinity more comforting:

Wisdom. Not all folks become wise, but I’m going to hold on to this last diagram in my thoughts as I try to go to sleep tonight. I’m not thinking about riding that arch up. I know you have to climb it. But that idea leaves the power and choice in my hands. And that’s a lot better than where the first diagram leaves me.

You’re welcome for the revisions Paula. Thanks for a great lecture. :-)

Summary: Working in partnership with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (NMAH) and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Office, we developed an interactive, multimedia-rich website that supports aspiring citizens’ efforts to pass the civics portion of the new USCIS Citizenship Test.

Using content from the NMAH collections and working with a consultant that specializes in teaching English as a second language, we created a flexible, progressively scaffolded learning environment through which students move through learning, practice, and test stages commensurate with their mastery of the question topics. Given that the interactive experience should appeal to learners for whom English is a second language, and that the civics test is conducted as an oral interview, voiceover narration and closed-captions are provided, and learners have the opportunity to practice responding to the audio prompts.

The framework contains 100 vignettes, 19 activities, and 32 zoomable object explorations, that help extend learning beyond merely teaching to the 100 questions on the test. Instead, using objects and documents from its collections the NMAH offers aspiring citizens a vibrant look at our nation’s history, the functions of our government, the rights and responsibilities of U.S. citizens, and the power of democracy. By providing context to the questions on the test, prospective citizens can facilitate their learning of complex facts and concepts, and draw a deeper connection to the significance of becoming an American citizen.

Summary: The AnyPlace platform provides a flexible, affordable way for historical and cultural institutions to share place-based interpretive projects online. Place is an important touchstone for memory, history, and culture. By exploring the memories and records of place, we educate the public and promote and protect significant spaces, sites, and stories that hold meaning.

Adapted from the codebase originally developed for PhilaPlace (www.philaplace.org), the AnyPlace platform allows organizations to establish their own interpretive website, using their own brand and visual aesthetic, and engaging visitors in exploration of their places, topics, curation, and media.

Each organization’s instance of AnyPlace would provide its visitors with a rich online tool for browsing place-based stories, images and videos on a map, by topic, or as collections. Visitors could alter content geographically and thematically, take virtual tours, save favorite places, print Google directions and submit their own stories and media for consideration.

The design challenge was to create an aesthetic that had enough of a “brand” to promote as a branded product, but not so much that potential clients felt that they would not be able to break-out of the AnyPlace look. The result is an exercise in subtlety and minimalism.

Summary:The Chicago Architecture Foundation (CAF) needed to develop a website for its OpenHouseChicago (OHC) 2011 program, a free public event that provided people of all ages, backgrounds, and interests with access to many of Chicago’s greatest architectural spaces and places that are normally open “by invitation only.” The website needed to convey a celebration of Chicago’s rich architecture, history, and culture found in the city’s vibrant network of neighborhoods.

We built on the community and mapping platform of PhilaPlace to design and develop the OHC desktop and mobile optimized websites. Through the integration of two open source solutions – Google Maps and the CollectiveAccess collections management system – PhilaPlace supports a rich feature set that presents a mosaic of historical and contemporary records about sites within a particular area.

Designing over top a preexisting PhilaPlace framework, most functionality and UI restrictions needed to be understood and followed, along with a strong brand inherited from the Chicago Architectural Foundation. The result is a website that through the desktop and mobile devices conveys the richness of the content as well as its place within the larger organization and brand.

Summary: The Minnesota Historical Society (MHS) needed to develop a robust online presence for its 3D Fort Snelling Project to provide an innovative way to showcase digital history by integrating three distinct, but interrelated components: historically accurate virtual 3D models, a collections database, and a data visualization tool. With that goal in mind, Night Kitchen teamed up with key stakeholders from MHS and the Virginia Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH) in a collaborative process to establish a Technical and Creative Project Plan that would be used to guide the design and development of the website.

It’s an exciting project to bring to the world, the on-site living history program of Fort Snelling, by building an interactive content-rich, collections-based website, and identifying innovative ways to engage visitors of all ages in Fort Snelling’s rich history. My main contribution to the Project Plan was through the creation of high-fidelity wireframes for client approval and UX by-in and with the creation of the preliminary visual creative treatments.

Summary: Develop the online components of a full media campaign for the Philadelphia Tax Amnesty program. The website was designed to integrate the already developed brand system and create an engaging & informative web experience to promote program details as well as sign-up users into the program. In addition to the website, online banners were created in 2 waves. The first wave was in released prior to the program launch and provided basics about the program and it’s key beginning and ending dates. The second wave of banners went live on the program’s launch date and had an actionscript countdown clock alerting the user to how many days were remaining in the program. Additionally, for the street-crew promotions staff, a fully animated placard was created with a countdown clock that showed the Days, Hours, Minutes and seconds remaining in the program.

Summary: Under a tight deadline and budget, create a portal website for the regional Acura trade association to efficiently educate users about current promotions and direct them to their closest local dealer website. Additionally we were tasked to build the site to allow for quick and efficient monthly updates. The HTML was generated in such a way as to only require a single image and text file change for each model. Efficient and effective.

Summary: Create a consistent and memorable brand across many different promotional channels for my local community’s then-fledgling civic association, EPCrossing.org. Whether it is through the website, stationary, flyers, banners, T-shirts or other collateral, EPX is now known in South Philadelphia and the local government. I chose the WordPress blog engine for their website, which was easy to configure, and gives the additional benefit of easy-to-use two-way communication between the board leadership and the membership. It was a great learning experience on the broad expandability of an open-source CMS built upon the LAMP stack (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP) with the power of full W3C compliancy. The branding and website have proved truly useful for the association. The combination of a complete and consistent brand along with a constantly updated and current web presence has made an impact not only on the local community, but the local legislators as well. Everyone involved with these projects consider them a rousing success.